


Foregoing the Lead

by newyorktopaloalto



Category: Falsettos - Lapine/Finn
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Apologies, Established Relationship, M/M, Submission, Submission as Penance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-09
Updated: 2019-07-09
Packaged: 2020-06-25 12:40:07
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,148
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19745959
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/newyorktopaloalto/pseuds/newyorktopaloalto
Summary: In the rush, the thrill of getting back together, Marvin never really took the time to apologize to Whizzer for everything he had done. After the dust had settled, however, he couldn't think of anything but.[Whizzer has already forgiven Marvin, but Marvin cannot forgive himself.]





	Foregoing the Lead

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I don't own Falsettos - please don't sue me. 
> 
> As my first foray into the fandom, I present to you: Marvin Cannot Forgive Himself and Goes From 0 to 60 in 3 Seconds Flat (Feat. Sexual Submission as a Needed Form of Contrition). Also, while this fic is definitely not modern, it's also not entirely historically accurate - it's just anachronistic, I suppose. 
> 
> Thank you for reading and I hope you enjoy!

“You know that you're not my therapist - you can't do anything about -” Marvin gestured a lazy circle around himself, “- all of this.”

“Yes, but that doesn't mean that I still can't help you.” Mendel took a seat at the table next to him, crossing his legs as he tapped his fingers restlessly against his thigh.

“Would you like a pad of paper?” Marvin asked magnanimously. “I know that's a thing that you therapists do.”

“I'm fine, Marvin,” he said, waving Marvin away before pinning him down with a look - he had been taking lessons from Trina, it seemed, and Marvin's mouth was already half open as Mendel asked, “But tell me, how are you?”

“My relationship - I feel like I'm going crazy in it.”

“What do you mean?”

Marvin sighed and buried his face in his arms, grabbing at his hair as he tried to parse through his own thoughts. “Whizzer acts like nothing happened. Or... Like what had happened was nothing short of normal. And so we live together, sleep, eat, and breathe together - like it's not _my_ back that's in this fucking corner.”

“Maybe he's forgiven you. Maybe it's yourself you can't forgive.”

“Yeah,” Marvin agreed, scoffing as he glared up at Mendel from his position on the table. “And maybe it's a good thing I don't pay you anymore.”

“But have you considered that the past is exactly that? Living there only makes things worse.” Mendel paused, as though in consideration for what he was going to say next before adding, “You've been there a time or two, yourself, as a matter of fact.”

The dining room was silent, Trina and Jason off shopping for new clothes; on the cusp of fourteen, Jason had started to grow like a weed - this was the second time in as many months that he had been forced to go shopping with his mother.

“It's been almost a year since you two got back together, right?”

“You know how long it's been, Mendel.” A pause. “Okay, so I can't let go – that's obviously an issue.”

Marvin generously ignored Mendel's muttered, 'only one of many,' and instead continued with, “What can I do about it?”

“Talk,” Mendel said immediately, as though it were the easiest thing in the world. And maybe to a therapist it was, but to Marvin - who still had trouble knowing the difference between anger and passion, between love and want and need and should - it seemed Sisyphean.

“Talk,” Marvin echoed after a moment.

“Talk.”

“Talk about?” Marvin asked.

“It doesn't matter, because no matter what you start with, it'll happen.” Mendel placed his hand on Marvin's shoulder. “Maybe not now, but that's okay. You have to open the lines of communication between the two of you, set yourself up to share.

“He might not say what you think you want to hear - he still might say he doesn't really care about what happened before - but you have to take the risk, Marvin.” Mendel tugged on his arm, prompting Marvin to reluctantly stand up and face him. “Just take it all day by day.”

“You've lost your therapeutic touch.”

“There wasn't time for you to really think about it before,” Mendel continued blithely, “so it's understandable that your personal issues were set aside. But there's time enough now, everything's alright, so now you have to be a man and go and talk to yours.”

“What if I just let him fuck me instead?”

“ _Talk_ , Marvin.”

Marvin nodded. “Talk.”

“But after the weekend - Jason doesn't need to -”

“Yeah, I know, Mendel.”

* * *

“Are you and my dad fighting?”

Marvin, fist poised to knock on Jason's bedroom door, stopped himself just in time from making a sound. From inside the room there was a shuffling noise followed by a heavy sigh as Whizzer, undoubtedly, sat on the edge of the bed.

“We're not fighting,” he finally said, and only after Jason's 'well?' made it patently obvious that he wasn't going to let his question go.

“You two seem like you're fighting. I mean... Dad seems sad, as though he's done something wrong.”

“He's usually pretty biting,” Whizzer conceded, “but I wouldn't necessarily say -”

“What's going on?”

A pause.

“Are you sick?”

Marvin could hear the thin note in Jason's question and almost barged into the room to assure his son that everything was alright, but held himself back - this was something that only Whizzer could reassure Jason about, Marvin having told him too many times that things were fine when they obviously weren't.

Whizzer's voice was almost unbelievably soft as he said, “I'm fine, buddy. Taking my pills and fit as a fiddle.”

He knocked, then, and pretended not to notice Jason hastily backing away from where he had been hugging Whizzer.

“Dinner, boys.”

“What'd you get?” Whizzer asked, standing up from Jason's bed with a stretch that Marvin couldn't take his eyes away from - from Whizzer's half-smirk and wink, he knew exactly what he was doing, the bastard.

“I cooked.”

“Oh, I just thought you were re-decorating.”

Marvin raised an eyebrow, but Whizzer only grinned and sidled up close to him, placing a hand on his stomach as he busked a kiss right below Marvin's ear. For a moment he believed that would be the end of it, but then Whizzer ruined the moment because the man just couldn't help himself.

“You know, from all the racket. It was either that or a raccoon in the house.”

“You cooked, dad?”

“I did.”

Jason opened his mouth to say something, but Marvin cut him off before he could. “Before you ask, it's not bad - I followed the recipe.

“Now let's eat, please, before it gets cold.”

He hustled Jason and Whizzer out of the room, shaking his head as he fielded their distractions with all the aplomb of ice skating in tennis shoes. How Trina had dealt with this, Marvin could never imagine, and he felt a little thrum of guilt still niggling at the back of his mind.

“What did you make?”

“Like I said, I got a recipe from your mother.”

“Okay, but what is it?”

“Yeah, Marvin, what is it?”

Their voices rang through the kitchen and Marvin rolled his eyes up in supplication before answering, “I don't know - it's a casserole?”

“Are you kidding me?” He heard Whizzer’s complaint to Jason, even over his opening of a bottle of his secret weapon - soda pop. “I go to the hospital enough in my life - I don't need another admission for food poisoning.”

“Don't worry, Whiz, I have the pizza place on hold,” Jason responded.

Marvin placed the dish soundly in the middle of the table, smiling down at both Whizzer and Jason with what they usually described as his 'crazy eyes'. “Eat up,” he said, “or it's going to get cold.”

“I'm sorry,” Whizzer said, letting a gloppy spoonful fall onto his plate with a look of intrigued disgust, “but I'm still not entirely sold.”

The three of them sat there and poked at the food.

“This is why I don't cook. I tried for Trina once - she was sick for three days.”

Jason, who had seemed to be gearing himself up to take at least one bite of the mess, pushed his plate decidedly away at Marvin's admission.

“This is why I cook,” Whizzer answered, patting at Marvin's hand consolingly, sympathetically - his pursed lips, however, gave away his mirth, and Marvin sneered in response.

“Yes, thank you, dear.”

Whizzer snapped his teeth at him, nothing but pomp and arrogance. Marvin leaned in close, but was stopped from a kiss by Jason loudly announcing that he would go and place a pizza order.

“Don't flirt with the delivery guy this time,” he said once he heard Jason on the phone.

“It's not my fault he keeps coming back - I think he hopes I'll answer the door.”

“He looks barely eighteen,” Marvin said, moving to stand between Whizzer's chair and the table.

“Like you're one to talk.” The words might have been a pot shot, but with Whizzer's fond exasperation added to the mix, Marvin took it as the needling it was meant to be.

“Now come down here and kiss me.”

It was an invitation that Marvin would be a fool to refuse, and it took only a few seconds for him to straddle Whizzer's lap. He slid his fingers through Whizzer's hair, before gripping the short strands at the back of his neck and tilting his face up.

“You're mine,” Marvin said, brushing his lips against Whizzer's.

“Ditto,” Whizzer said into the kiss, bringing one of his hands to Marvin's ass to pull him closer.

“So I have a date with a girl tomorrow.”

Marvin didn't know how long he and Whizzer had been kissing, but any sort of building passion had been quickly doused at Jason's blunt statement.

“Did you say a 'date'?” Marvin asked, his question overlapping with Whizzer's 'you have a _what_ tomorrow?' as their heads whipped to Jason, barely managing not to crash into each other.

“You have a date?” Marvin demanded, standing up from his place on Whizzer's lap before he hauled him up as well. “You're too young to be dating - your mother and I've talked about it.”

“Only bad things come from dating,” Whizzer agreed, pulling Marvin in by his waist. “I mean, I dated all the wrong people when I was younger and just look at who I'm with now.” Marvin glared at Whizzer, but didn't say anything in defense of himself - Jason usually took advice from Whizzer better than from anyone else, and Whizzer was usually pretty competent with the wisdom he doled out. Who was Marvin to deny the - admittedly insulting - advice.

“Think of it this way - who you date can become a trend, so remember to be mindful.”

“First relationships never last,” Marvin said.

“Don't say that.” Whizzer rolled his eyes, but Marvin noticed he didn't disagree with his statement.

“They don't, I'm just telling you the truth - but enjoy it, okay? Before you know it, firsts like this will be long in the past.”

Jason stared between the two of them for a little while, before rolling his eyes - the motion was all Marvin, but the accompanying huff absolutely screamed of Whizzer's influence.

“That is all terrible advice - it's a good thing I'm not actually going on a date.”

He grinned, then, and said, “I just wanted to mess with you guys, get you to stop kissing.

“Whizzer, want to play chess while we wait for the food?”

The grin was Trina, the distraction, Mendel, but everything else was uniquely Jason.

Whizzer agreed readily and, after giving Marvin a lascivious once-over, followed Jason into the living room.

* * *

It was two in the morning and Marvin should have been asleep a long time ago - he had work in the morning and was never on his best behavior the day after a sleepless night. His heavy breath fluffed Whizzer's hair, Marvin's face pressed squashed against the back of his head. He could feel Whizzer's steady heartbeat against his hand, and he couldn't help clenching his fingers gently into Whizzer's skin, smoothing them out the moment he noticed his subconscious actions.

“So, what's the matter?”

Whizzer placed his hand on Marvin's forearm, squeezing it with surprising force for being half-asleep - were Whizzer not still snuffling sleepily into the pillow, Marvin would attribute the action to retaliation for waking him up at two in the morning. The way he had asked the question however, quiet and drowsy, showed Marvin that it was nothing more than genuine concern. 

“Nothing is - everything's fine, I'm doing just fine.”

“You can lie all you want, but Jason's noticed.”

“I know. I overheard you two talking this evening. It wasn't intentional, but I stayed and listened to the entire thing.”

“You're a sneak.”

“You love it.”

“That's debatable.” Whizzer didn’t speak for a moment, and Marvin thought that was the last of the conversation - usually he was able to get away in his digression, but it seemed as though his behavior had been entirely too far-out for Whizzer to pretend was normal, as he continued to harp on the topic with a ferocity that in most other circumstances Marvin would find himself hopelessly turned on by. 

As it stood, however, he found himself hard-pressed to not extricate himself from Whizzer and plead further ignorance. 

“This is the end, then?” 

Whizzer turned around easily in his grip and stared Marvin down, calculating - had Marvin not known better, he would have assumed Whizzer happy for the question, his tone light enough to convey an easy nonchalance. 

“What do you mean?” he asked in turn, hoping to stall whatever this would become for as long as he possibly could - Marvin might be the one to usually pick a fight, but this was not one of those moments. This was not something that he and Whizzer - with enough sneering, gravel-threats, and getting into each other’s faces with deadly intent - could turn into a game. This was not something that, in the end, they could both got off to and enjoy the consequences of. 

This was something real - something that could not be passed off as anything more than an all-encompassing guilt, a desperation that Marvin could not let go of until something broke. 

“You know what I mean.” 

“I don’t deserve you,” Marvin said in lieu of a proper response - let Whizzer take that as he will, because fuck Mendel and fuck talking about it. 

“You really don’t,” Whizzer agreed, not seeming to care one whit when the joke fell entirely flat. “This can’t be what all of this is about, though.”

He took Marvin’s chin in his hand and forced him to look into his eyes. “Tell me it’s not something as stupid as that bullshit.” 

Marvin didn’t respond and Whizzer sighed before pressing a firm kiss on his closed lips. “You’re an idiot.” 

“Not the first time I've been told that,” Marvin replied instinctively. “Not even by you, as a matter of fact.” 

“Yeah?” Whizzer asked rhetorically, burrowing his face in the hollow of Marvin’s neck as he pulled him tight against his body. “Then stop thinking about it. I don’t care anymore - everything’s fine. We're fine.” 

There was a sharp pain against his throat as Whizzer’s teeth claimed that bit of skin as his own before he said, “Now go to sleep, babe.” A pause. “After all, it’s just the future on the line.”

* * *

“I’m not entirely blameless in the matter, you know,” Whizzer said the next night, leaning into Marvin’s side as they watched the ten o’clock news, fingers plucking idly at clothes as they tried to relax. 

“I know,” Marvin said, and most of the time that was the truth- but sometimes he couldn’t quite remember why. 

“I know,” he reiterated, “but…” 

“‘But’ nothing,” Whizzer replied, reaching for Marvin’s chin as he nosed down his neck. He straddled Marvin’s lap, then, and flicked his forehead with a perfectly manicured nail. “My forgiveness wasn’t just for show. For some unfathomable reason I’ve been drawn into all your craziness - at this point I’m too invested to consider anything short of cataclysmic a roadblock.” 

And Mendel, damn the man, was right after all. 

“But if you’re still feeling guilty,” Whizzer continued blithely, smirking a little as his voice went low with intent, “I’m happy enough to accept your contrition through sexual favors.” 

“Oh, are you?” Marvin asked rhetorically, hooking his fingers beneath Whizzer’s collar to walk his fingers down his chest. “And what kind of favors did you have in mind, Whizzer?” 

Whizzer grinned and said, “Your mouth on my cock.” 

“That’s all?” 

“And then you can get yourself off while still on your knees.” 

Marvin raised an eyebrow - Whizzer followed suit. 

“You can just say you want a blowjob.” 

“And have you laugh at me? No thanks, I’ll just indulge in your guilt.” 

“I wouldn’t laugh,” Marvin denied, grabbing hold of Whizzer’s shoulders to switch positions. 

With Whizzer’s shirt partially unbuttoned, a few strands of hair undone from his stringent style, a dark look in his eye as he bit the air with his teeth, he looked the picture of furtive debauchery - pictures hidden under his bed and schoolmates he pretended to never notice. 

“You’d tease me until I almost die of blue balls.” And Marvin couldn’t disagree with that. 

“Right here?” he asked instead, slipping to his knees and holding back the wince that came from the motion. Marvin wasn’t getting any younger, and his knees wouldn’t be doing him any favors in the morning, but he knew any lingering pain would be more than worth it. 

Especially as Whizzer hitched in a breath, tilting his hips up in heady invitation when Marvin nuzzled his nose against his already half-hard cock. 

“Yeah, right here,” Whizzer said, one of his hands fitting itself into Marvin’s hair as he scratched at his scalp. 

“You have a thing for the weather guy,” Marvin complained idly, unbuckling Whizzer’s belt with the easy motions of having had done it virtually everyday when they were together. 

“I have a thing for your mouth when it’s covering my dick and not talking.” 

“I have a thing for you gagged and at my mercy, but you don’t see me doing anything about it, do you?” Marvin replied, flicking open the button of Whizzer’s slacks and - slowly, without any real pressure - undid the zip with a leer. 

“I could be amenable to that,” Whizzer promised, “but for right now just please shut up.” 

“If that’s what my man wants…” He trailed off then and urged Whizzer’s hips up, shucking his pants and briefs down to mid-thigh with a hurried finesse. 

“Damn,” he whispered, licking his lips as Whizzer’s cock bounced against his stomach, a drop of precum already pooling at the head. 

“Look at you,” he cooed snidely before sucking a mark into Whizzer’s hip bone. “Already hard and weeping.” 

“Oh my God, shut up,” Whizzer groaned, fisting his hand tighter in Marvin’s hair as he pushed him towards his cock. “Why are you such an asshole?” 

Marvin opened his mouth, intent on asking Whizzer if he actually wanted a blowjob, or if he just wanted to bitch at Marvin while he was on his knees for him. 

“Don’t answer that, you -” 

Whizzer cut himself off as Marvin rolled his eyes and took a firm hold of the base of his cock; he brushed his lips lightly against Whizzer’s already sweat-scented skin, down to his own hand and then back up to the crown of his cock. He could tease Whizzer like this, he knew, could nuzzle at him for hours and Whizzer would just take it, panting and flushed and swearing Marvin up and down - he would pretend to be irritated, but Marvin knew he loved riding the brink just as much as Marvin loved being the one to get him there, to keep him there. 

“C’mon, Marvin, you owe me at least a face-fuck.” 

“Is that what you want, then?” Marvin asked, deliberately accentuating his words so his lips would play against Whizzer’s cock with every syllable. “I can do that.” 

He pulled away slightly and braced his hands on either side of Whizzer’s hips, before winking and opening his mouth, curling his tongue out in a lascivious invitation. 

“Wait, seriously?” 

Hard-pressed to not simply just roll his eyes again, Marvin instead took the matter upon himself and took Whizzer’s cock into his mouth until the tip of it hit the back of his throat. Marvin very deliberately, then - and with a slowness that he liked to pretend was from wanting to tease Whizzer as opposed to trying not to choke on his dick - continued to slide down Whizzer’s cock until his nose was pressed into his neatly-trimmed pubic hair. 

And yes, this might not have been something they did often - because Marvin was not usually interested in the lack of voice the next day usually brought about - but he felt as though Whizzer’s, ‘fuck, Marvin, you must actually feel guilty,’ was a bit unfair towards him. 

Whizzer was careful at first, like he always was - and if that consideration didn’t just damn Marvin more than he already was, because who the fuck actually cared about the welfare of their partner when they were getting sucked off? - but soon enough the slow rocking of his hips wouldn’t be enough for him. He swallowed a little, partially to clear away a cough but mostly to hear the noise Whizzer made as his throat muscles worked against his cock, and he felt Whizzer’s hand slide down to grab the short ends of Marvin’s hair at the nape of his neck. The touch made Marvin shiver and, despite his best efforts, he gasped a little around Whizzer’s cock as his eyes slid closed. His mind went a little blank as Whizzer tugged sharply on his hair once more, this time in what Marvin assumed to be a warning. 

“I’m going to fuck your throat now,” Whizzer said. His voice was already low, a gravel entering it that always made Marvin a little weak in the knees, and Marvin hummed in agreement as he draped most of his upper body weight on the edge of the couch between Whizzer’s legs - it would be easier on him in the long run, and there was something in the way Whizzer said it, or simply maybe something in the way that Marvin interpreted it, but whatever it was, Marvin knew that this was exactly what he needed to be doing right now. 

“Is this your penance, then?” Whizzer asked almost idly as he pulled Marvin’s head up an inch or two before pushing it back down. The slow rocking of his hips kept mostly in rhythm with his maneuvering of Marvin’s head, but after a few more slow thrusts, he knew Whizzer must have been aching for something more. 

“That’s it, babe,” Whizzer said, his sharp inhale the only thing betraying his otherwise sugary tone. “You look perfect on your knees.” 

At the almost murmured words, Marvin scrabbled to find better purchase for his hands, something to ground himself so he wouldn’t simply fall away into Whizzer, swept into him as though he were nothing more than a fancy accessory. And Whizzer, sensing this was now running a vain deeper than they had both believed this night would end, took Marvin’s hand into his free one before pressing a light kiss to his knuckles. 

“This is what you need to finally convince yourself I forgive you, huh?” He paused, then, keeping Marvin’s head pressed down tight against his groin even as his throat convulsed a little and he couldn’t help the tears that sprang to his eyes. “Now - don’t think about anything except what we’re doing, and only do as I say.” 

And Marvin, brain already half cotton as Whizzer murmured the words to him, moaned involuntarily around his cock. 

“Stay there, okay? I’m taking my hand off of you now.” 

A truly pathetic whine swelled up in the back of his throat - there was an emptiness where Whizzer’s hand had been and Marvin felt it keenly - and he didn’t have quite enough time to stifle it before the sound came through. 

“That’s it,” Whizzer said, shifting his weight forward to hold their weight better. “You’re doing very good.” 

Somewhere in the back of Marvin’s hazy mind he realized how lucky he was that Whizzer could roll with the punches as well as he did - this was not something normal between the two of them, but Whizzer seemed to be taking it like a champ. 

“I told you not to think.” Whizzer tapped the top of Marvin’s head before he pulled it up until only the head of his cock was still in Marvin’s mouth - despite the fact that Marvin was not usually _this_ cock-hungry, he couldn’t help but try to surge forward simply to get that solid weight back on his tongue. 

Whizzer’s grip tightened in his hair before he could get too far back down onto his cock. “No, babe, not like that.

“Look at me.” The command was like a jolt through his body, sharpening everything in him until Marvin was laid on a razor’s edge, laid bare and wanting even while still fully clothed - he must have looked properly desperate, as Whizzer looked a little surprised when their gazes met. 

“There you go, that’s perfect,” he said after a moment, encouraging Marvin to start sucking gently on the tip of his cock. “Now, just do as I say, Marvin - it’ll all be okay, I promise. After this we’ll get back to our normal fighting and fucking, but right now this is what you need.” He paused to look at Marvin who, at the intense scrutiny, couldn’t help the next few tears that slid down his cheeks. “Just… Let me lead.” 

And Marvin broke. 

**Author's Note:**

> Will have a direct sequel, but I'm still pinning down Whizzer's POV for it.


End file.
